What Are You Good At?
by Monarch
Summary: It's been years since the Bladebreakers broke up, and the reporters aren't interested in Kai anymore. No one is interested in Kai, really - he lives on his own with a cat named Ragamuffin, visits his dying grandfather in the hospital every Wednesday, and hasn't spoken in months. Life looks like it's going to carry on this way indefinitely until Ray makes an unexpected return.
1. Chapter 1

The reporters aren't interested in him anymore — haven't been for years — which isn't as much of a relief as he thought it would be. He sort of wishes someone would ask him about what it felt to win against the world-renowned American team, or how many pies Tyson could pack down in a single sitting, or whatever, because the fact is the Bladebreakers are still the best thing that's happened to him.

He slips in through the side entrance of his apartment, the one that lies flush against the garbage bins and always smells like rotting pears. Sometimes there are stray cats hanging around, but he doesn't feed them. They can eat from the bins if they want, and anyway he never remembers to bring meat with him.

Cats need taurine, they can't make it in their bodies, you can't feed them carrots or celery or low quality brands. He has a manual. The humane society gave it to him. He reads it over every so often, just to make sure he's getting everything right.

There's a guy hanging around the hallway, smoking a cigarette just inside the entrance. He's skinny, a jittery bony kind of skinny, and he has black makeup smeared around his eyes. Kai knows him, sort of. He's seen him dragging trashcan furniture into room 408, down the hall — the things people leave for collection by the garbage bins.

The guy waves at him, and Kai ducks his head as he passes by. Thinks, that asshole owns my lamp.

It's not until he's actually inside his apartment, his own cat Ragamuffin swatting at his legs for food, that he remembers he's supposed to wave back.

He cuts his own hair in his bathroom, sitting on the edge of the sink with a pair of ordinary scissors and a hand mirror. Ragamuffin paces the floor, stopping every now and then to leap at stray strands.

It's blond now, back to its natural colour. He hasn't dyed it for a couple years now, but he's thinking maybe he'll buy something cheap from the supermarket. He's pretty good at dying hair. He has a good sense for how long it takes for the dye to set, the bleach to sink in.

Maybe after Grandfather dies.

He frowns, tilting his head to try and cut the back into interesting chunks.

He feels sad for some reason, and he doesn't know why.

###

He checks his phone for missed messages, compulsively. He reads the newspaper at the kitchen table every single day, even though he can't remember the contents when he's done. Time seems to be moving sideways.

He's waiting.

He's always waiting.

It's his job, now. Keep the phone on. Feed the cat. Show up during visiting hours on Wednesdays and pretend not to notice the way the nurses look at him when he sits on the chair beside Grandfather's bed, screwing around with Candy Crush until he needs to adjust a pillow or fetch a glass of water — he's a bad kid, the last family member left, and he doesn't care about this dying old man who isn't going to see next year's snowfall.

On the first Wednesday of December, he brings flowers, just to make them think he's making an effort. They're yellow as police tape. Grandfather grunts when he sees them. "Cut the stems."

They were already cut in a vase when Kai bought them in the gift shop. He takes them out, pulls the jackknife out of his pocket, and cuts them again anyway. A sharper angle. Who knows — maybe they'll collect water better this way.

"Better."

There's something in the way grandfather is looking at him — an edge that makes all the muscles in his shoulders tense.

"The boy is in the paper. Your old friend."

Grandfather's voice is thinner than it used to be.

"Listen to me."

Kai looks up. Grandfather's head is sunk into the pillow. He points with his eyes — there's a paper lying on the little table beside him, the one Kai read but barely remembers.

"Came to something," Grandfather says, and coughs.

They all did. Kai knows this. He sees Ray on TV sometimes, talking in his clear serious voice about how they have to save the wilderness — he sees the Beyblade shop Max and Kenny own together. Tyson, who knows what happened to Tyson, he probably inherited the dojo from his grandpa. Kai stayed there for a while once and Tyson never made him explain why.

And then there's him. Never done anything since. Couldn't find a single leftover skill.

Used it all up in a children's game.

He looks at the clock. He watches the hands tick. Grandfather stares at nothing in the distance. When the hands hit nine, Kai gets up and leaves.

#

At home, he looks through the newspaper for the article. It's buried way in the back. Ray's coming here, it says — he's doing a talk about environmentalism at the local high school. There's a picture of him holding a tame hawk on his fist in a school's gymnasium, and then a little blurb about him having once been in a nationally recognized team from this very town — as if Ray belonged to them, somehow.

He folds the paper up and puts it carefully in the recycling bin.

He checks his phone. He cooks chicken hearts on the stove, oil spitting at his arms, pours hald into Ragamuffin's bowl and then eats the other half with disposable chopsticks he's washed until they're bone dry.

It's a life.

It's a _life_.

Noe everyone gets to be something twice. He already used up all the parts of himself that matter. It's okay. It's fine. He's fine.

#

At ten, his phone rings.

He doesn't know the number, but when he picks it up, there's Ray's voice coming out of the speaker.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hello_ , Ray is saying. _Hi. I hope this is the right number. Kai? Kai Hiwatari? This is Ray Kon?_

As if Kai could forget the sound of his voice.

It's a lullaby half-forgotten, distorted with age — lower than he remembers, and softer too. Kai presses the phone against his face hard enough that it hurts his cheekbones. Something stirs inside his ribcage. He wants to talk to Ray so badly that it hurts in every hollow corner of his body.

When he opens his mouth, however, his throat closes up before he can form the words.

The line buzzes. He can hear Ray breathing. "Kai?" Ray says again.

 _Speak_ , Kai tells himself, but a dull panic fills his airways, and after a moment Ray mutters something to himself that the connection isn't good enough to handle, and hangs up the phone.

Ragamuffin swats at his feet. Kai slips his phone into her pocket and crouches beside her, pokes at her soft paws with his index finger. She mewls and presses her body against his knees.

It's better this way — easier, at least. The fear disappeared with the click of the receiver.

#

Ray tries twice more after that. Both times, Kai lets the phone ring out without answering it. He leaves it on the other side of the room and balls up old newspaper to throw for Ragamuffin while he waits for it to quiet.

He tells himself he's ignoring it because he's moved on. Because speaking to Ray isn't advantageous to him anymore. Because he needs to keep the line free for the hospital, just in case. He makes up lies until they blur into nothingness inside his head.

After it's fallen silent long enough that he's certain Ray has given up, he drags his futon into the kitchen and curls up onto it. He sleeps there, the smell of cooking all around him, Ragamuffin crawling over his chest, the _clunk-clunk-whirr_ of his refrigerator covering up the sounds outside his window.

He dreams of tops spinning eternally, and children who held gods in the palms of their hands.

#

On his way to the hospital, he passes the cigarette guy in the hallway again. There's something hungry in his eyes, something raw.

Kai pauses for a second, then turns away and sweeps past, tugging his scarf up around his face until it swallows up his nose and his mouth.

#

Grandfather is doing better than anyone expected. When Kai gets there, he's standing in the middle of the room with his walker, breathing hard. He's turned away from the door. Kai steps back into the hallway before Grandfather notices him.

He's weak, now. He depends on people to take care of him. Maybe that should make it easier to look at him, but it doesn't, not even a little bit — Grandfather's strength was never the problem. Grandfather was never the one who dragged kids down dark hallways, or locked them in basements for their inadequacies.

Anyway, it isn't as if Kai hates him. He's blood — the only thing either of them have left.

Before he can register her, the food lady brushes past him with her tray. "Hi," she says, brusquely, and his cover is blown. Grandfather looks up as she chirrups at him. "You're up! How fantastic! Are you feeling better?"

Grandfather grunts at her. Kai slips into the room, pressing his back against the wall. He doesn't like leaving it exposed.

"What are you hiding back there for?" Grandfather snaps.

Kai shrugs. Grandfather sits back down and watches the food lady distribute his lunch on the table.

"You just let me know if you need anything else, sweetheart."

"This is fine," Grandfather says. His voice is hard, but she doesn't seem to notice. She tuts at him, swings her cart around, then turns to Kai as she's leaving. "You take good care of your grandpa, now," she says, sternly, before turning down the hallway.

Grandfather and Kai wait in embarrassed silence.

Kai wants to tell her, don't you know who this man is? Don't you know how successful he is, how powerful — you aren't supposed to cluck at him and call him a sweetheart. You're supposed to do exactly as he says, or else. He doesn't know why it matters to him, but it does, a lot.

They don't look at each other, and then Kai's phone rings again — Ray's song, the little trill Kai gave him, and Grandfather snaps at him. "Well, pick it up."

Kai obeys without thinking, and then Ray's voice is suddenly in his ear. He's talking slow but relentless, the way Ray always has when he's worried. "Oh, god, good, you're here — I wasn't worried at first, but I talked to Max and Kenny and they told me how you walked out on them last month — then you weren't talking on the phone — they're not _mad_ , of course, but they're concerned. I know you don't like people to worry, but — Kai, are you there?"

Kai hangs up.

"Who was that?" Grandfather asks him. Kai shrugs. He sits down beside Grandfather and points at the tray of food.

Remarkably, Grandfather listens to him, and begins to eat.


End file.
